Rulers on land, helpless at sea

Child’s War (1682-1690) it may have been called, but it was no child’s play. It was a bold and ambitious – though premature and abortive – attempt by the directors of British East India Company (BEIC) to wrest the province of Bengal from the Mughal Empire. It was undertaken at a time when Emperor Aurangzeb, in neglect of rest of his other domains, had been trying to extend his control over the stubborn states of Deccan. However, having put together strong naval and field forces, the Mughals inflicted a comprehensive defeat on the British and made them accept humiliating terms for peace.

This marked the last instance when the British would suffer such a defeat by an Indian force and accept terms dictated to them.

This is the story of that war. However, this narrative, as one reads through it, is not only about that war but also about the shenanigans of the officials of the East India Company on the western coast of India.

Let us first introduce the main antagonists of this conflict.

Sir Josiah Child – the war was given his name because he initiated it – was a merchant cum politician who started his career as a trader in England, and amassed a comfortable fortune. He became a member of the House of Commons and also a director of the Company in 1677, before rising to be the governor of the Company in 1681.

Sir William Hedges became the first British governor of Company holdings in Bengal in January 1682. Another important Company official was Job Charnock, an old India hand, who became head of the Company’s affairs in Bengal in 1684, after Hedges was withdrawn. Charnock is credited with laying the foundation of Calcutta after the war in 1690 – with the approval of Emperor Aurangzeb.

On the Mughal side, Shaista Khan was a powerful and influential governor during the reign of Emperor Aurangzeb. He was a maternal uncle of Aurangzeb and was appointed by him to Bengal as governor where he stayed on till 1688. He was in command of Mughal forces there during Child’s War.

By the late seventeenth century, in the latter half of Emperor Aurangzeb’s reign, the East India Company had established its presence along the entire Indian coast with major factories at Surat, Bombay, Madras and Kasim Bazaar. The Company’s commercial interests in Bengal were expanding rapidly but they were managed from distant Madras – 1,300 kilometers away by sea and 1,700 kilometres by land. Kasim Bazaar itself was about 200 kilometres from the mouth of the River Hooghly.

However, this arrangement was now beginning to prove inadequate. The Company’s trading activities were threatened by native rulers who all wanted a part of the profits. Kasim Bazaar was a notorious den of European smugglers who were neither under the control of Mughal officials nor allied to the British East India Company. There were also accusations of dishonesty against the Company’s own officials, including Sir Matthias Vincent, the ‘Chief of Factories in Bay of Bengal’.

Child had become taken with an inflated sense of his own power and decided to go to war with the Mughal Empire

As a remedy, the Company decided to give autonomy to its Bengal operations and appointed Sir William Hedges, one of the Company’s 24 directors, as the first Governor of British holdings in Bengal. Job Charnock served under him as head of operations at Kasim Bazaar.

Hedges had been entrusted with some clearly defined objectives. His first task was to negotiate an end to the growing demands of the local Mughal officials. He was also instructed to break the activities of private European traders who violated the trading monopoly of the Company. He was to take steps against corrupt Company officials. In particular, he was tasked with the arrest his predecessor, Matthias Vincent, for corruption and sending him back to England.

Hedges reached Hooghly in July 1682. Chronicles from the time indicate that he was not a man of tact or prudence, though he was experienced in international trade and had also dabbled in local and clergy politics.

His imperious attitude brought him into constant collision with his associates in the council at Hooghly, especially with Job Charnock, John Beard and Francis Ellis; three officials who were later to serve as Company’s President/Governor for Bengal. In the end, these three also proved too strong for Hedges, who failed to comprehend the tricky knots that were tied around the British presence in Bengal.

When Hedges tried to arrest Vincent, he found that the task was complicated, formidable and beyond his powers. Aware that he was about to be taken prisoner, Vincent resisted arrest with the help of well-armed soldiers and forced Hedges to retreat to the Dutch settlement of Chinsurah, a little further inland along the River Hooghly. Vincent also had the support of his business associate Thomas “Diamond” Pitt. Pitt was an employee of the Company and one of the original infamous Indian ‘Nabobs’ (a corruption of the word ‘Nawab’, it referred to British traders and officials who amassed vast fortunes through their activities in India, and lived an accordingly lavish lifestyle). Pitt, as such, was one of those who were making their fortune through private trading: the very people that Hedge was to act against. The reader would do well to note that Pitt, who later became the Company’s President at Madras, was the grandfather and great-grandfather respectively of two future Prime Ministers of the UK.

Aurangzeb knew that British ships of war could sweep his coasts and destroy his navy; and, above all, that it was in their power to prevent the pilgrimage to Makkah

The second important task entrusted to Hedges was to meet the Mughal governor of Bengal, Shaista Khan, and obtain an Imperial directive (firman) that would grant England regular trading privileges throughout the Mughal Empire. He had started the negotiations but was undermined by Sir Child – who had now turned against him on a petty matter. Resultantly, the negotiations broke down, angering Shaista Khan, who responded by applying restrictions on the trading activities of the Company!

Child then had the appointment of Hedge revoked, recalling him back in mid-1684 and again placed Bengal under the Madras Presidency, appointing Charnock as Chief Agent in Bengal. By this time, a crisis had arisen over restrictions on trade; in particular over Shaista Khan’s imposition of a customs duty of 3.5 percent, which the English refused to pay on the grounds that it was in breach of the original firman that exempted them from custom duties.

Such fiscal demands had often been made before. However, Child had become taken with an inflated sense of his own power and decided to go to war with the Mughal Empire.

He persuaded King James II to retaliate by fitting out the largest armada that had ever been dispatched from England to the East. Admiral Nicholson was sent out with twelve ships of war, carrying 200 pieces of cannon and a body of 600 men with an additional 400 soldiers from Madras. His instructions were to seize Chittagong, demand the cession of the surrounding territory, conciliate the local zamindars, establish a mint and enter into a treaty with the Raja of Arakan on the Burmese coast – in short, to found a kingdom of his own.

However, this ambitious project was destined for abject failure. The fleet got dispersed during the voyage and several of the vessels, instead of steering for Chittagong, entered the Hooghly.

The arrival of such a formidable expedition alarmed Shaista Khan and he offered to compromise on his differences with the English. However, an unforeseen event brought the negotiations to an abrupt close. Three English soldiers were strolling through the marketplace of Hooghly when they quarrelled with some of the government officials and were severely beaten. Both parties were reinforced, and a regular engagement ensued, in which the small native force was completely humbled by the British troops. At the same time the admiral opened fire on the town and burnt down 500 houses, also destroying Company property valued at three million rupees. The Mughal commanders ordered a suspension of hostilities.

This was the time when Charnock took up his appointment as the Chief Agent on the suspension of Hedge. Finding himself besieged at Hooghly, Charnock put the Company’s goods and employees on board his light vessels. He retreated, in December 1686, to the little hamlet of Chuttanutty, about 26 miles down the river on the site where subsequently arose Calcutta. Shaista Khan renewed and dragged out the negotiations till his troops could be assembled. He then marched down to attack the English encampment, forcing the British to retire to the island of Ingelee at the mouth of the river. It was a low, deadly and grass-covered swamp, destitute of any fresh water.

It speaks of the desperation of the Company that a man of Charnock’s experience, who had spent thirty years in India – and who must have been aware of the nature of that place – was forced to select the unhealthiest spot in Bengal for an entrenched camp. Mughal forces prudently allowed them to remain there without further engagements. In the next three months, half the British were dead – including Charnock’s wife – and the other half were fit only for hospital.

At this juncture, when the prospects of the English were reduced to the lowest ebb, the Mughal court, due to their one serious weakness, again made unexpected overtures of peace to Charnock. The Mughal Empire was supreme on land but had an Achilles’ heel when it came to command of the seas. Control of the seas rested squarely with the Europeans by this stage in history. The Mughals had to send trading and pilgrimage ships to Makkah and other parts of Arabia regularly – and this couldn’t be undertaken without the approval of the British, who reigned supreme over the Indian Ocean.

Before this peace offer could be taken up seriously, another twist occurred. It appears that simultaneously with the dispatch of Admiral Nicholson’s expedition from England, the Court of Directors instructed the Governor of Bombay to withdraw their establishments from Surat and the neighbouring ports, and to commence hostilities on the western coast. The western Mughal ports were blockaded and their pilgrim ships captured, forcing the Emperor to seek reconciliation and order his governors to make peace with the British.

The Court of Directors, on hearing of the failure of Admiral Nicholson’s expedition, instead of folding up their ambitious project, determined to prosecute war with increased vigour and sent out reinforcements under Captain Heath.

Immediately on his arrival, Heath discontinued the treaty negotiations, and proceeded to Balasore, which he bombarded and burnt. He then sailed to Chittagong; but finding the fortifications stronger than anticipated, crossed the bay and landed the whole of the company’s forces at Madras. By now the trading activities of the British East India Company in Bengal had come to a complete stop.

This fresh outrage by Heath exasperated Emperor Aurangzeb who issued orders for the extirpation of the English and confiscation of their property. His orders were literally obeyed. All East India Company trade was terminated, while their possessions were confiscated and reduced to the fortified towns of Madras and Bombay. The latter, too, was besieged by the Abyssinian Sidi Yaqub, the Mughal naval commander from Janjira, an island south of Bombay. After a year of resistance, the English were starving and lost hope of breaking the siege.

These twin failures, one in the Bay of Bengal and the other on the Western Indian seaboard, forced a reversal of the Company’s policy. Bombay’s governor finally sent two envoys to the Emperor at Bijapore in 1690 to propose terms for peace and plead for pardon. The Company’s envoys had to prostrate themselves before the Emperor, pay a large indemnity, and promise better behaviour in the future.

Aurangzeb never allowed his passions to interfere with his interests. He was aware that his government benefited greatly from British trade, the value of which exceeded ten million rupees a year. He also knew that British ships of war could sweep his coasts and destroy his navy; and, above all, that it was in their power to prevent the pilgrimage to Makkah. He was therefore induced to accept the proposition of the Company. He withdrew his troops and directed Bengal’s Subedar Ibrahim Khan, who had replaced Shaista Khan in 1688, to let the Company operate as usual. The war came to an end.

From its inception in 1600, the British East India Company had restricted itself to aggressive but non-violent trading practices for 80 years. During Child’s War, it backed up its commerce with an armed fleet. Child was able to project state power across the oceans in support of a trading company.

Though the British were humbled and lost the war against the still powerful, united and organised Mughals, the Company felt confident in the aftermath, because it had been able to hold the upper hand on the high seas and coastal areas. And more importantly, despite winning on land, the Mughals were still obliged to seek security from the British for their marine travel to Makkah and elsewhere. This weakness was further highlighted during the Ganj-i-Sawai incident in 1695, which I have narrated in the 4th November 2016 issue of this magazine – published under the title “The Padishah’s painful realisation” (it may be accessed at http://www.thefridaytimes.com/tft/the-padishahs-painful-realisation/ )

The Mughal pardon for the Company was to enable them to strengthen their power in the post-Aurangzeb strife. Barely 70 years after Child’s War, Lord Clive won the Battle of Plassey and effectively took over all of Bengal – thus laying the foundations of the British Indian Empire. The rest, as they say, is history.

Note:

I am grateful to the The History of India from the Earliest Period to the Close of Lord Dalhousie’s Administration by John Clark Marshman, whose account of this war is the most quoted one on the subject.

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Parvez Mahmood retired as a Group Captain from PAF and is now a software engineer. He lives in Islamabad and writes on historical and social issues. He may be reached at parvezmahmood53@gmail.com